Upton, Chad (Principal)

I want to welcome you to Leicester Elementary School’s website and to our school community at Leicester. I am excited and humbled to have the opportunity to begin my first year at Leicester after spending all of the first 18 years of my career here in Buncombe County Schools. Prior to my time here, I served as principal at both Woodfin and Fairview Elementary School and as an Assistant Principal at several elementary, middle, and high schools throughout our system. Prior to my administrative career, I was a science, math, and social studies teacher at Enka Middle School. During that time, I also served as basketball and baseball coach at Enka Middle and Enka High Schools.

I am married to my wife, Sarah, an agent with the NC DHHS Division of Child Development, and have one son, Tyrus, a 5th grader at Bethel Elementary School. Both of my parents are retired educators. My mother, Treva, taught for 30 years at Waynesville Middle School while my father was a teacher, high school principal, and Superintendent of Schools in Haywood County. I am a graduate of Pisgah High School in Canton as well as Appalachian State University and Western Carolina University with degrees in Middle School Education, Geography, and School Administration. I am a family oriented person, where I spend much of my down time, along with pulling for the Carolina Hurricanes, Appalachian Mountaineers, Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Braves. Along with that, I do enjoy writing pieces for the Waynesville Enterprise-Mountaineer and broadcasting Pisgah High School Football on AM 920 WPTL in Canton in the Fall. Reading is an important pastime in my family as well. I enjoy regional non-fiction, historical non-fiction, particularly World War II era and that relating to the history around North Carolina's mountains and coast. Along with this, I deeply enjoy the comic book genre as the heroes of Marvel and DC comics have become one of my, and my son's, favorite pastimes.

I can’t put into words my excitement to continue working with the children and families of Leicester. You may often hear me refer to your child as my child too and I believe our job is to do all we can to give them the best experiences possible here. I know we have a tremendous staff of dedicated professionals that make sacrifices in their own lives and look forward to their work each day, families that are involved with their children and their community, volunteers who sacrifice each day, and a community that dearly loves it's school. I would say to you that there is no better example of a successful community oriented elementary school than that of Leicester. We look forward to continuing our work in advancing our children’s access to technology, developing and deepening partnerships with the entities around us that share our goals, growing our student's access to all the information and experiences that we can find, deepening our skills in reading, writing, and math, and having a true sense of place in our community and country within the process. It is our pleasure to work to give our children the very best of us each day by keeping them safe, healthy, and eagerly engaged in their educations and lives. I appreciate each family and look forward to serving Leicester.